According to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, nearly 800,000 children are reported missing each year in the United States, or 2,000 cases per day. Abductions by strangers are reported to account for 115 of those cases each year. While many children are quickly located, the time interval between a report and reunion with the child can be a frightening experience for all involved.
Wearable tracking and locator systems for have been proposed in the past but few have met with widespread acceptance.
In the most simplistic example, a parent can place a locator beacon in the child's clothing itself—such as in a pocket. Since the beacon is not physically joined to the child in any way, it can easily be removed, misplaced, fall out, or otherwise become separated from the child.
Other attempts to solve the problem have involved locator beacons that are insufficiently integrated into clothing and can be easily removed by simply lifting the beacon out of the bag, cutting it away, or tearing it out. Further, prior art sensors that are visible on the exterior (or otherwise known) may alert an abductor to the presence of the beacon.
Other solutions require bulky, unsightly and non-washable hardware that detracts from the appearance and functionality of the clothing article. Such an inelegant design can detract from the overall appearance and visual impact of an article and may be unattractive to consumers.
Prior solutions have often been limited to the single purpose of pinpointing the location of the article. However, other information embedded in a beacon could be valuable to the manufacturer or consumer.
Prior solutions also fail to identify the parent or guardian of a lost child. In the case of an especially young child, the child may not know a parent's phone number, their address, or other identifying information.
While of perhaps lower concern to an individual, lost personal items—such as clothing, luggage, and accessories—are a continuous problem in everyday life, with the consequences ranging from modest inconvenience to significant economic loss. A misplaced or stolen handbag, for example, can result in a loss of several hundred dollars (a consumer-grade Coach bag, for example) up to nearly $100,000 in the “super-luxury” category that includes certain animal skin bags from Hermes, Bottega Veneta, and others. Compounding the loss of the bag itself may be the loss of its contents, which may include cash, electronics, and even personal items that may be irreplaceable.
Oftentimes a loss is outside the control of the user. For example, even though the rate of bags lost by airlines has been decreasing, industry baggage handlers misplaced an estimated 21.8 million bags in 2013. While more than 80% of these lost bags were ultimately simple delays in transit, over 4 million bags experienced severe delays or were never located. In addition to economic loss, these millions of passengers were inconvenienced, perhaps far from home. Further, people frequently entrust their belongings to coat check agents, hotel bellmen, porters, doormen, and others, with the result sometimes being an article that has been misplaced, stolen, or given to the wrong person.
Lost articles are not the only concern. The authenticity of goods, particularly high-end brands, is important to consumers and designers alike. The quantity and value of counterfeit goods has grown significantly in recent years and by some estimates exceeds $200B each year. According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, handbags and wallets were the top category for counterfeiters in terms of dollar value, according 2013 statistics. That year, CBP seized 2,200 shipments in this category alone with an MSRP value of $700M, accounting for 40% of the value of all goods seized across all categories. Clothing and apparel was the number four category in 2013 with over $116M in counterfeit goods, representing 7% of the total. The European Union has a similar problem with an estimated €26B in counterfeit clothing and accessories entering the market each year, according to the Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market.
Customs agents and manufacturers have limited means available to combat counterfeiting, including visual inspections, examination at ports of entry, educational campaigns, and the like. Despite greater attention to the problem, the economic impact remains severe.
Proposed solutions for tracking lost articles suffer many of the same drawbacks as those identified with systems for tracking lost children, namely integration into existing materials, conspicuousness, and reliability under varied environmental conditions.
What is thus needed is a means for integrating a washable device into an article of clothing or accessory where the integration is semi-permanent and resistant to tampering, removal, or even detection by a would-be thief.
What is further needed is a means for providing an embedded device that identifies its location, and which can be integrated into an article of clothing or accessory, and which is not impacted by washing the article.
What is further needed is an embedded device that provides identifying information, such as parental contact information, or in the case of a lost article, ownership information or confirmation of authenticity.